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The Word On The Street has been renowned for the quality and diversity of its event programming and our 2026 festival promises to offer the best so far. Check out our schedule for Saturday, September 19, 2026!
To see yourself as others see you
As an asteroid is about to slam into Earth, ex-convict Roscoe Koudoulian, along with Captain Letitia Garvey and her starship crew, re-upload their consciousnesses into cyberspace. In that digital realm, Roscoe is confronted by someone he left for dead centuries ago, and the astronauts face younger versions of themselves—ghosts in the machine—whose continued existence could destroy the last survivors of the human race.
ROBERT J. SAWYER has won both the Hugo and Nebula Awards for best science-fiction novel of the year. The ABC TV series FlashForward was based on his novel of the same name, and his Quantum Night was long-listed for Canada Reads. A member of the Order of Canada, the Order of Ontario, and the Canadian Science Fiction and Fantasy Hall of Fame, Rob lives in Mississauga.
The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street is an intimate geopolitical memoir about a family separated by distance and borders, split between Taiwan and Canada in the wake of shifting global powers.
In 1979, following the US–Taiwan break in diplomatic relations, a family emigrates from Taiwan to Canada—only to arrive in the midst of a deep recession. With few job prospects, the parents make a wrenching decision: to return to Taiwan for work, leaving their children behind in Vancouver. At just twelve years old, Wiley, the youngest child, suddenly finds herself unsupervised with only two rules to live by: study hard and stay out of trouble.
What begins as freedom soon gives way to homesickness, cultural dislocation and isolation. The siblings struggle in different ways, but once a month, during brief overseas phone calls, they gather to maintain the illusion of stability for their guilt-ridden parents. The separation grows from months to years. The family is never whole again.
The story of this fractured household parallels Taiwan’s own ongoing struggle for survival, identity and recognition—much like its children, scattered across the globe. The memoir draws a powerful connection between personal and political displacement, revealing a hidden history of resilience among transnational families.
While countless “astronaut children” and “parachute kids” have grown up in Canada, the US, Australia and New Zealand, their stories remain largely absent from the literary landscape. The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street brings their experience into urgent and unforgettable focus.
Wiley Wei-Chiun Ho is a Taiwanese Canadian writer, whose award-winning short stories and personal essays have been published in literary journals, magazines, and anthologies. Her first book The Astronaut Children of Dunbar Street: A Memoir (Douglas & McIntyre) debuted and remains on the BC Bestsellers List and was a summer read recommendation by CBC News. A strong champion of writing communities, Wiley founded the Diasporic Writers Salon in Vancouver and is a member of the Asian Canadian Writers’ Workshop, the Federation of BC Writers, and the North Shore Writers’ Association, where she regularly hosts community reading events and writing workshops. www.wileyweichiunho.com
A boy is trapped in a time loop—and in a girl’s body—in this heartfelt and wryly humorous love story.
Laurie wakes up in a girl’s body with no memories, driving down an unknown highway, and promptly crashes the car. Thankfully, a handsome stranger named Gideon comes to his rescue. It’s awkward for Laurie to pretend that he’s a girl, but at least this is the scariest thing he’ll ever have to deal with.
Except the next morning—and every morning after—Laurie wakes up barreling down that same highway. He re-meets Gideon every day, with no idea who this girl whose body he’s inhabiting even is. Only one thing is clear: he’s on a countdown. Laurie has been given only one hundred days to get back in the right body, break the time loop, and not fall for Gideon while he does it.
Maybe Tomorrow I’ll Know is a funny, deeply felt exploration of love, identity, and what it means to move through the world in a body that is truly yours.
Alex is a Canadian artist, musician, and YA author of DEAD GIRLS DON’T SAY SORRY from Knopf BFYR, I WISH YOU WOULDN’T, and MAYBE TOMORROW I’LL KNOW (upcoming April 7, 2026 from Norton BFYR. When they’re not at the keyboard, you can find them hosting tabletop game night, working on illustrations, or at their other keyboard composing music.
Alex’s love of art, music, and the western Canadian landscape regularly spills into their writing, which tends to feature complex friendships, twisty romances, and explorations of queerness. They live in Calgary with their roommate, cat, and dice collection.
Meet Kaboom: Zack Commonda, agent of F.U.S.I.O.N. (First Universal Secret Indigenous Operatives Network), and the newest superkid on the block! Well . . . sort of. He’s still figuring it all out.
When we meet Zack, he’s being looked after by his super-cool Auntie Jess and dreaming of one day being like his hero, slick business tycoon Konstantin Pierce. Zack’s parents are away — yet again — for their important careers in “refrigerator sales.” Little does Zack know their true identities: Greywolf and Shadowbird are F.U.S.I.O.N. agents on a mission to protect Indigenous artifacts from a nefarious tomb-robber!
In this series launch, acclaimed creator and lifelong comics fan Jay Odjick introduces a superhero for our times.
JAY ODJICK is an artist and writer from the Kitigan Zibi Anishinabeg Algonquin community, just outside of Maniwaki, Quebec. He has created comic books and produced the animated TV series Kagagi: The Raven, which airs in Canada, the US and Australia. He previously illustrated Robert Munsch’s picture books Blackflies, Bear for Breakfast/Makwa kidji kijebà wìsiniyàn as well as The Ocean Goes on Forever, which appears in the anthology Munsch Mania. He is thrilled to be able to join forces with Robert Munsch to bring stories about today’s Indigenous kids to a broad audience. Visit him online at www.kagagi.squarespace.com.
